The men headed north to Bowdoin for the New England Regional Championships, and a chance to race against the best of New England and an opportunity to put a great fall of training into a race indicative of their hard work. Unlike recent years, the Regional course was flat and one that would most likely yield some fast times and potential PR's for those who were willing to get after it. Still looking for that great race - individually and collectively - the men were focused on taking advantage of the course, the competition and all their hard work this year, and wanted to make a statement. Knowing the course would be flat but also tight in many places, we felt it important to be aggressive and get ourselves out into good position early and then do everything that we could to stay there. The gun fired at high noon and the men in purple got off the line well and put themselves in good position at the initial bottleneck and then around the 800 mark, Andrew Erskine, Pat Grimes and Ben Scheetz were out very well - in the Top 10 at the moment - while Greg Turissini, Dillon Buckley, KC Fussell and Eli Howe were amongst the masses but out well and established. As they came out of the woods shortly after the mile mark, Andrew and Grimey were in the Top 10 while Ben was settling himself into his race, and KC was moving his way through the field to get himself into position while the guys behind were looking great. In talking about the race, it was important to get into position of where we wanted to finish by the 3 mile mark and try and lock into that race and as they came through 3 mile, Andrew was in a tight pack of 5 other runners in spots 3-8 while Grimey was running close behind in about 15th. Fuss had moved up into the 30 or so range while the rest of the guys were still knocking off a fast clip in about 60 - 75th place. Knowing that the Top 7 individuals would advance to NCAA's, Andrew would not relinquish his position and as he headed onto the field for that last time, he was in a mad dash for the finish line with NCAA's on his mind and he crossed the line in 6th in a time of 25:01 - a huge race, and that one that we had been focused on all season. Not to be outdone, Grimey came through 12 seconds later finishing 19th overall - 4 people shy of making the trip to NCAA's but a phenomenal race and a big PR. Fuss came through in 25:31 - a big time race for the first year from Monson MA while it was the 800 NCAA Champion in Ben Scheetz who would finish 4th for the team in a 26:12 with Greg coming through in 26:20 in 74th to close out the scoring. Captain Dillon Buckley ran his PR of 26:29, while classmate Eli also knocked over a minute off of his best XC time. In the team scoring, the guys finished 8th - only 3 points from Nationally ranked (30th) Brandeis, 10 points from 17th ranked MIT and 30 points from the 5th and final potential NCAA qualifying spot, and most importantly, a huge performance that may have caught others by surprise but one that they have busted their butts for all season. While the team will think about track, Andrew will think about focusing his attention on NCAA's and trying to better his performance from this weekend with an even stronger run at Osh-Kosh on Saturday.